The Chilling Decisions of Sabrina
by burbankstorylady
Summary: Writing exercise. I wanted to read some Sabrina/Dark Lord fiction, but found nothing, so attempting one of my own. None of these characters are mine, obviously. I'm just a hack doing devil's play. Pun absolutely intended. IT DOES CONTAIN PART THREE SPOILERS. LOTS of them. I'm going to set the rating to Mature just to be safe. Things could get intense. Also on Wattpad & AO3.
1. Introduction

The paradox really began when a future Sabrina went back in time and space to swap places with a Sabrina who had made a terrible mistake. Future Sabrina and Past Sabrina switched places. Past Sabrina went to the other Sabrina's reality, the one in the future, to see the fallout of Caliban's rise and fall with her own eyes. Everyone she loved, dead. Because of her. Because she had decided to go traipsing off on a mission to keep herself, and her father, on the thrones of Hell. Oh the irony of Ironies! Sabrina, who insisted many times that the only reason she agreed to become Queen of Hell in the first place was to get her beloved back, now chose to save the House of Morningstar; and to crown it all, pardon the pun, this was the same Sabrina who led an entire covenant in defiance of their Dark Lord just to help Sabrina avoid this very destiny. Granted, there were prospects tied to that destiny that were absolutely repugnant to her, such as helping her "father" to open the gates of Hell and, thereby, enslave mortal kind. It was, indeed, in the interest of avoiding a co-reign of terror from the pits of Hell and at the side of Satan which inspired Sabrina to attempt to imprison her biological father inside the Acheron Configuration. But while Edward Spellman's invention was adequate to contain common demons and hags, it was no match for the Dark Lord. He ejected himself within seconds of his imprisonment. Lilith restrained him from being able to harm Sabrina just long enough for a new plan to be formed and for Nicholas Scratch, self-proclaimed "best binder and conjurer since Edward Spellman," to basically swallow him. And so began the strange sequence of events that, at any rate, saw Sabrina assume the throne of Hell. Well, she had to; she had no choice, did she? She had to save Nicholas Scratch, the professed love her teenage life. The thing is, once you have that kind of power, can you give it up?

"My fiends and friends, tonight I present to thee my first-born. Sabrina Morningstar, Proud Lady of Pandemonium, Maiden of Shadows, and Queen of Hell. Hail Sabrina." That was the first coronation. Sabrina stepped aside and crowned Lillith to take her place as Queen of Hell. In exchange, Sabrina got her powers back (the ones she gave up to the mandrake and Ambrose made in their foolish attempt to subvert the prophecy) and Lillith promised to "take good care" of Nick. Oh, and she also got her favorite teacher back.

So Sabrina, for a moment, saw that she might have exactly what she wanted. At once to be a witch, to have magical powers, and be like any other teenage girl. Sabrina the teenage witch, going to high school and... well, doing stuff "normal" girls do, right? Only "normal" girls get to have boyfriends, don't they? Harvey was out of the question, of course. He had declared his undying devotion to Ros. No, Sabrina was no longer thinking of Harvey like that. Besides, it was Nick who had really loved her; it was Nick who, despite his weakness in the face of a personal request for Satan, had, after all, sacrificed himself for eternity, to harbor the emperor of the demonic world himself, just so that she could live a "normal" life. Whatever normal means!

"And already, the chaos your failed application provoked threatens your precious Greendale."

Satan's imprisonment left a vacuum at the pinnacle of the leadership of Hell. The demon princes and generals of Hell would not accept Lillith, Satan's mistress, as their Queen. In the absence of a blood Morningstar, there was an opening for a whippersnapper made of clay named Caliban to rise up.

"You know what must be done, Sabrina. Claim the throne. Embrace your destiny. And save your boyfriend. Or say goodbye to him forever."

And so, to prevent the coup, the pagan apocalypse, and the imbalance of all the realms, Sabrina sat on the very throne Lillith had been keeping warm and faced down the mockery of the prince Beelzebub to declare herself, once and for all, Sabrina Morningstar, rightful Queen of Hell. She had no idea what she was getting herself into at the time. "We both know you don't really want your father's throne," Lillith said after the satanic courtiers dispersed. It was true. She really just wanted to take her boyfriend back to Greendale and get back to high school stuff, like cheerleading tryouts and ice cream sundaes at Cerberus Books.

Fast forward to her first act as Queen: dragging her first soul to Hell. "This proves nothing, a single soul," derided Beelzebub, who still saw her as a child playing out of her league. But to Sabrina, it was everything. Having brought one scumbag to his just fate, she felt she could do anything. This whole queen thing began to feel like... well... kinda cool. All she needed to do was do a little redecorating. Give Hell a "makeover." Or in non-layman terms, a reformation.

-Something's different about you.

"I dragged my first soul to Hell today."

-Ah. And how did that make you feel? All that power, all that rage?

"Like I'm capable of anything."

-That's my girl.

Excuse the simplistic, overused metaphor.

Little birdie on one shoulder: "You're the Queen of Hell. You can do anything. You can change Hell for the better, make it more ... well, Sabrina like?"

Little birdie on the other shoulder: "Your family needs you. Your friends need you. Greendale needs you."

How to be in two places, in two roles, have two lives? Can the world handle two Sabrinas? Or will it spell disaster as Ambrose warned?

"Just you wait. Everything has consequences and there are always loose ends."


	2. Chapter 1

** Reader's Note: This is just a little feast after the coronation to get things started. This is the Queen Sabrina universe. Next up will be an equally short glimpse at Baxter High Sabrina. **

"Now," The dark lord began from his chair at the head of the long stately dining table in Pandemonium. He smirked as he made eye contact with his newly coronated first-born, who sat on one side of the table at equal distance from himself at one end and Lillith on the other end. "Can we get things back on track now that you've come to your senses and embraced your destiny?"

Sabrina smiled as she glanced away, unable to maintain her diplomatic perfection too long under her father's piercing gaze. She took a sip of water from its bronze chalice that was decorated with skulls. (Her father, in the spirit of celebration, had offered wine, for in Hell, unlike on Earth, there are no age-restricted drinking laws; nevertheless, she wanted to keep her wits about her, a wise decision given the company!) "Whatever do you mean? I thought we were on track. Father. I've had my coronation. It's official. I belong to Hell now." She lifted her eyes to meet his again. "And Hell belongs to me."

Satan laughed heartedly at this. "I do appreciate your enthusiasm, daughter. However, I wouldn't want you to suffer under any delusions."

"Delusions? Whatever do you mean?"

The smirk vanished from Satan's face and Sabrina was sharply reminded of who it was with whom she was sharing a meal. "Whatever do you mean, what?"

Sabrina took a deep breath to keep her bearings. She had to play her cards right. "Whatever do you mean," she repeated, adding, "Dark Lord?"

He was satisfied. "I mean, I don't want you to forget your place, Sabrina. You're my heir." He stopped to quickly glance gleefully at Lillith. "One of my heirs."

"About that," Sabrina spoke up without thinking. "Lillith?" She looked at her sometime regent. "Are you really... pregnant?"

"Yes, Sabrina. The dark lord and I..." Lillith very consciously smoothed the material over her not-nearly-yet-showing belly. "... are expecting a child. A son, actually." Lillith was positively at the peak of smugness, even for her. And who can blame her? Why, not so long ago, she had gone on the run, fearing for her life, so much that she had sought refuge in the home of the Catholic woman whose face she took! And now? If she was a little sad at (again) being denied queenship at her lover's side, she had one heaven of a consolation prize. One day, her own child, a boy of her flesh, would be the almighty ruler of Hell and all its domains.

"The plot thickens," Sabrina said. She lifted her chalice. "A toast? To my brother's good health?" As if the good health of the spawn of the First Woman/First Witch and the Fallen Angel could ever be question! But it did throw a wrench in Sabrina's plans, like her fantasy of a total reformation of Hell, for starters. It had been a long day. Even after the arduous process of being primped and plucked for the coronation, there were all the people of Court to meet and try to remember the names of. Might as well relax and enjoy the feast for now. After all, her father had benevolently ordered an actual, edible feast, not the usual fare of maggot-covered turkey legs, in respect for Sabrina's yet-to-be-acclimated palate.

As they drank to the unborn boy's health, father and daughter kept their eyes on each other. Satan's eyes flickered red. Sabrina's eyes flickered red. She heard him speaking, but without moving his lips and in a way that only she could hear.

"The world will be remade in Hell's image. All the demon hordes will be freed, and you and I will rule over Hell on Earth, together, for all eternity."

This time she did not retort with a sassy remark about school. Instead, she said, using the same mind-to-mind method of dialogue between them: "By Hell's image, you mean, your image, don't you, Father?"

He only stared at her in response so she pushed on. "Which, of course, means nothing at all will change."

Lilith watched them with fascination. Although she could not hear what they were saying to each other, she knew very well that a private dialogue was underfoot.

"You'll be for maintaining the status quo," Sabrina continued to her father.

Satan lost interest in eating and drinking. He sat back in his chair and crossed one leg over the other. He observed Sabrina bemusedly. Her inner conflict, her discontent, her discomfort were all delicious to him. Her attachment to her mortal ways were annoying in a way, but they also delighted him for they were the product of that Morningstar restlessness: that spirit that originated with him, that rebelliousness that provoked him to say 'no' the False God's demand for his obedience. The Fallen Angel was no sycophant, would not obey or conform for its own sake. Was it not the same spirit that drove Sabrina to fight for justice for her friends against a corrupt high school faculty? Of course it is inconsistent. Lucifer Morningstar refused to obey the False God and paid the ultimate price, but he demanded the same kind of obedience from his flock. He simply became the mirror image of the thing he had rebelled against. Sabrina was inconsistent as well in wanting simultaneously to be normal and to have magical powers, in wanting both to be queen and a regular high school cheerleader to the point where she manipulated time and space in order to do both! Like father, like daughter: Inconsistent to the end, and never content.

And so part of him was infuriated by Sabrina's reluctance to come to heel and kneel before him; but there was another part of him that his child was not simply one of the easily-hoodwinked flock. And so in that moment, he determined to indulge her... within limits. As he told her when they danced the Mephisto Waltz, he would allow her to have her little Greendale pets. As for the rest, time would tell.


	3. Chapter 2

"Trouble in paradise?" Dorian utterly failed to conceal his bemusement at the sight of Nicholas Scratch taking a seat at his bar. One of the best things about his job was getting to know the dark secrets of his clientele. He fondly recalled patrolling the shadier parts of 19th century London, how he would uncover mysteries his west end friends only speculated about in their comfy chairs at the Reform Club or read about in the less respectable weeklies. But none of that even came to close to the kind of intrigue he discovered on a regular basis in Greendale. Nicholas Scratch having nightly orgies, cheating on his girlfriend, who happened to be the daughter of the dark lord himself; that was ballsy! Or stupid, whichever way you want to look at it.

"Shut up, Dorian. Just give me a drink. My usual."

"Awe come on, Mr. Scratch. You had to know it was bound to end at some point. Everything does. My friendship with Basil, for example."

"Dorian!" Nick interrupted Dorian while holding his hand up. "Spare me a repeat of how you stabbed your portrait painter."

Dorian looked offended. "I wasn't going to say anything about stabbing."

"Nick?"

Before either could say anything else about it, both looked up (well, Nick sort of turned) at the sound of Sabrina's voice.

"What do you want, Spellman?"

"Nick, I want to talk." (Dorian placed the drink he had ordered in front of him. The owner-bartender did not even try to hide the fact that he was treating their personal conversation like a soap opera.)

"There's nothing left to talk about. We agreed to be friends."

"I don't want to be friends. This is stupid, Nick. I love you, you love me. Things are going to happen, bad things. We have to deal with them, not break up when the going gets tough."

Nick was on the verge of losing his temper again. He controlled it, with difficulty. "Sabrina," he said through clenched teeth. "I need time."

"Ok. You need time. How much time?"

"I don't know, Sp- Are you still a Spellman?"

"As a matter of fact, I am."

Nick looked at her curiously. "So? You're still Sabrina Spellman even though you're the Queen of Hell?"

Sabrina's face broke out into a brilliant smile. "I'm not the Queen of Hell anymore."

Nick was confused. "But I thought-"

"I'll be happy to explain it to you. If you have dinner with me."

Sabrina and Nick sat down for dinner and she explained the whole story about how one Sabrina went to rescue another Sabrina, who was cemented in cement after Caliban stole the 30 pieces of Judas silver that she had painstakingly retrieved; and then that second Sabrina did all the shit to fix everything, so she went back just in time to meet up with the other Sabrina before that Sabrina had time to fall for Caliban's trick.

"So..." Nick tried to piece it all together in his head. It was making him dizzy. "You're the Queen of Hell, but... you're here. Wearing a cheerleader outfit. Clearly not dragging souls to Hell and whatever else the Queen of Hell does."

"That's the beauty of it," she said with that fantastically optimistic and cheery attitude of hers. "I get to be Queen but I don't have to be Queen!"

"Sabrina, I... I don't know."

"Ye of little faith. Just like Ambrose."

"Well, what do your aunts say?"

"Oh." The smile faded on her pretty face. "Well, they sort of... don't know, actually."

"Sabrina!"

"Well, I mean, they don't need to know, do they? They're not even worshiping the Dark Lord anymore."

"Which reminds me... Does your father know?"

Sabrina looked even more uncomfortable. "Nooooo?"

"Oh, for hell's sake, Sabrina. This is not good."

"Why do you and Ambrose insist on being such Debbie downers?"

"So you told Ambrose, but not your aunts or your father, the very people who will kill you when they find out. Sabrina, there's gotta some kind of magical violation here. It's like, insanely paradoxical. Just the fact that you encountered the other you's in the first place!"

"Look, Nick, it's fine. Everything is fine. I have no reason to go to Hell. The other me has no reason to come to Greendale."

"Except when everything goes to Heaven, which it often does, let's face it. You know, Sabrina, you can be really annoying sometimes."

Sabrina stared at him, unable to find words. She settled with, "Really?"

"Yeah, really. You think you can just manipulate time and space and everything, and get everything that you want. That's not how the world works for most people. Most of us don't get to be the Queen of Hell when we feel like it."

"Well, Nick, I'd like to see you try it. It's no picnic, I promise you."

"You know what's not a picnic, Sabrina? Being chained up-"

But Sabrina couldn't hear anymore. She stopped him right there. "Oh no, not this again."

Nick stood up in fury. "I'm sorry my traumatized life is an inconvenience to your perfect existence."

"Nick!" Sabrina called out to him in vain. He was fed up and he left the establishment.

Sabrina was about to go after him but Dorian stepped in front of her. "You know you can check on your double anytime you like."

"What do you mean, Dorian? I don't have time for this."

"I didn't tell you before but I have a portrait that connects directly to the main hall at Pandemonium."

Sabrina was interested now. "Really?"

"Indeed."

"Wait..." Now she was getting pissed. "You let me and my friends take the long, dangerous blood strewn path from the Shores to Sorrow when all along you have a direct fucking passage to Pandemonium!"

Dorian shrugged, as if to say awe shucks. "I don't share my Pandemonium passage with anyone, I mean can you imagine the requests? It would get so annoying. But now, I'm genuinely curious about your... double. So as long as you promise to give me every detail on your return, you're free to use it anytime."


	4. Chapter 3

Obviously, Sabrina did not _need_ Dorian's portrait-passage into Pandemonium. From that first day of hers in the Pandemonium great hall, when she first sat on the throne and claimed it, and swore to defend it from a certain would-be usurper made of clay, before all the demon lords and generals, she had been going there the VIP way. Now that she had been coronated and stood as the unchallenged Queen Sabrina (for now) she could flit in and out of Hell as easily as going through a door. Oh, but what a tangled web we weave when we split the timeline! There is Queen Sabrina, who only needs to snap her fingers in order to change her location. And there is Sabrina Spellman, cheerleader at Baxter High, and part-time student at Zelda's academy. Sabrina the teenage witch could magic herself into Pandemonium at the wrong moment, in front of the wrong person. Worse, she could magic herself into position right beside her other self and then they would have some explaining to do! So you see, Dorian's passage was very useful in these twisted circumstances of her own making. She could easily make the journey and all she needed to do was look and listen before entering.

Lucifer kept the original of Basil Hallward's portrait of Dorian Gray, all corrupted and ugly and yet beautiful to him. The portrait opened like a door into a tunnel of decadence. It was dark and eerily quiet and Sabrina, on her first journey with Dorian at her side, wondered how they would see the way, let alone actually reach the Underworld. "Hang on," Dorian said as he shuffled around. Finally, at the strike of a match, there was light and she watched him touch the flame to the wick in the lantern. "Old times' sake," said the Victorian gentleman with a wink and smile.

Sabrina expected that they would start walking, but she also expected Dorian to start walking first. After all, it was his passage. He knew the way. She did not. When she realized he had no intention of moving, she spoke up. "Um, Dorian?"

"Hmm?" He was his usual relaxed, carefree self.

"Aren't we... going... somewhere?"

"Yes."

Her eyes widened in surprise at his passivity and lack of ... any sensation whatsoever. "Dorian?"

He now seemed annoyed. "What, Sabrina?"

She let out a sigh of exasperation. "Well, are we just going to stand here until Heaven burns?"

Dorian burst out laughing. "Sabrina, you are funny." Just as he said that, Sabrina screamed out in surprise because they started moving down, or the walls around them were moving up. One or the other, she couldn't tell. At last, one of them, the floor or the walls, stopped moving.

"Here. Hurry. The chairs are coming, and they go fast, and they don't stop."

"What?"

"The chairs. We ride the chairs to the doors of Pandemonium. Ah, here we are. Sabrina?"

Dorian helped her into one of the chairs, just as Victorian gentleman does without thinking. Oh there's a lady present? Give her your hand. "Hurry," he advised her. "The chairs do _slow down,_ a bit, but they don't stop."

Before Sabrina knew it, she was in the swirling domed chair and Dorian was in his own swirling domed chair opposite her. Dorian was enjoying this, relishing it, as if it was a sort of meditation for him. He seemed almost oblivious to Sabrina's presence, as if this journey was (indeed, she was sure it was) deeply spiritual for him. The journey from Earth to Hell!

"Do you go to Hell often?" she asked finally.

"Not as often as I would like," he said serenely. "I was fascinated to hear about your clay man."

"Caliban? You know Caliban?"

"No, I don't _know_ Caliban, but Sabrina, you ought to know, word travels quickly out of Hell. Your other-timely self's friends, Beelzebub and Asmodeus, and the rest of them, where do you think they go to unwind?"

Sabrina resisted the temptation to laugh out loud. "Beelzebub, prince of disorder, hangs out at the Gray Room?"

"Oh, hell's no," scoffed the Victorian. "Beelzebub and Asmodeus don't 'hang out' anywhere. They reserve the private rooms for their, uh, shall we say, 'activities.' But their slaves and minions, those guys are in all the time. Those are the ones I'm most worried might discover this passage. If they knew about this convenient way of getting back and forth, they'd be using it constantly and I would never get an ounce of rest."

Sabrina half-smirked. "Well, you don't really need it, do you? Being dead and all?"

Dorian scowled. "I'm not 'dead and all,' at all, thank you very much. The Dark Lord, your father, resurrected me."

"He did?! He can do that?"

"He did. For a price. Of course."

"Of course."

Sabrina eyes had adjusted so well to the lantern-lit dark surroundings that it came as a shock when, suddenly, they seemed to be passing over a city! Chairs on the track, in the open air, high above a city... Big Ben?

"Are we in London?"

"We are. London in 1890 to be precise. We'll be passing over my old house soon. I occasionally pop in." He winked at her and added, "For old times' sake."

"Wow. Dorian, you really have it made in the shade."

"'Made in the shade'? What does that mean?"

"Oh come on. You can't die. You don't age one day beyond the day Basil finished your painting."

"Wrong! I do age, actually. Why, I am old enough to be your great-great-great-great-grandfather!"

Sabrina rolled her eyes. "Cheeky. You know what I meant."

"I honestly don't. I'm unfamiliar with your quaint expression, 'made in the shade.' Oh, look there it is."

He pointed. They were passing over a very posh part of London called Marylebone.

The track sloped at this point and Sabrina was pinned to the back of her chair as they descended. "Dorian, how is this even possible? Can people see us?"

"Of course they can't see us," he replied. "No one sees anything, do they? Even in the 19th century, people were busy and self-centered, their noses buried in the dailies while they walked instead of iPhones."

"But what if someone does look up?"

"We're invisible to them, Sabrina. This track is enchanted. It's one of the many perks of owning a commercial enterprise the devils of Hell are all invested in. Now come on. We'll only be a moment."

They stepped out of their chairs and onto pavement in Portman Square.


End file.
